Attaching More Importance to Fiber Optic Adapter

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Fiber optic adapter is a small but
critical, part of hardware in the fiber optic cabling system. Available for
more than a decade, the fiber optic adapter has been a relatively stable device
with no really revolutionary breakthrough in its technology, and its importance
is often overshadowed by connectors, but product manufacturers continue to
stress the significant role that these devices play in overall interconnection
performance.

 

Getting to Know the Concept of Fiber
Optic Adapter

Fiber
optic adapter is often used to
join two terminated fiber optic cable or pigtails together, or to form a fiber
optic jack on a wall plate or panel for patching. Like the copper cable
adapter, it creates a permanent mating point somewhere for users to plug into
as needed. Fiber optic adapter is also called as fiber coupler, it allows fiber
optic patch cables to be attached to each other singly or in a large network,
which permits many devices to communicate at once.

 

Note: fiber optic adapter and fiber
optic coupler shape a little differently—if the two fiber assemblies to be
connected have different style connectors, then we always call adapter; on the
contrast, the two patch cables have the same style connectors, we call adapter.
This can be clearly distinguished in the following image.

 

How Do Fiber Optic Adapter Work?

Unlike a copper connection that two
copper conductors can be joined directly by a solder or by connectors that have
been crimped or soldered to the wires, the key to a fiber connection is the
precise alignment of each fiber core. This alignment is achieved by two
precision components: the ferrule within each connector and the alignment
sleeve within each adapter as shown below. The alignment sleeve is the critical
component in an interconnection, which is aimed to bring together the ferrules
of the two connectors being mated within the adapter’s sleeve and at its
approximate midpoint. The performance of the adapter, defined as how well it
aligns two connector ferrules, is determined by the amount of spring force in,
and the tolerance of, the split sleeve.

 

Three Common Fiber Optic Adapter Types

According to different shapes and
structures, fiber optic adapters can be classified in several types, such as
bare fiber optic adapter, mating sleeves and hybrid fiber optic adapters. The
following text will introduce them respectively.

 

Bare Fiber Optic Adapter—Bare fiber
optic adapter is structured with optical fibers on one side and the adapter on
the other side, which is used to link the bare optical fiber cable to fiber
optic equipment. The adapter side is a connector that can plug into the devices
and enables a quick and easy termination for the optical fiber, making it
widely used for emergency situation for fast and temporary fiber optic or
urgent connection. According to the connector style on the fiber patch cable,
there are LC, SC, FC bare fiber adapters available on the market as shown
below.

 

Mating Sleeve—Mating sleeve means the
fiber optic adapter is used to connect the same type of fiber optic connectors
as shown in the image below. Bare fiber type and plug-in type are available for
the mating sleeve. The LC, SC, FC fiber optic adapter are the common mating
sleeve types that we often see in networking applications. LC adapter greatly
increases the density of fiber optic connector, SC adapter enables a high
precision alignment with a low insertion, return loss and back reflection, and
FC adapter is easy to operate but sensitive to dust.

 

Hybrid Fiber Optic Adapter—Unlike
mating sleeve, hybrid fiber optic adapter provides interconnections between two
different fiber connector types as shown below. It includes male-female and
female-female hybrid fiber adapter. Female-to-female hybrid adapter is with two
different ends, which is bulk type hybrid fiber adapter, such as FC female at
one end and ST female at the other end. Male-to-female hybrid adapter is built
out type with a connector plug end and an adapter socket end. Hybrid fiber
adapter is often with compact size and widely used for network environments,
integrating different configurations and networks.

 

Conclusion

Don’t look down upon any components in
telecommunication applications, since any small devices play an important role
in connection, and improving work efficiency, like fiber optic adapter that we
have mentioned above. Choosing the right fiber adapter type, you have to check
the fiber optic patch cable you need to connect.